ABA Interventions

Science Education Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) interventions (EIBI, PECS, and Video Modeling) may seem to be utilized for improving behavioral, social, and communication skills, but, they can also be used for academic development especially science. For instance, since autistic students are considered to be more visual learners than auditory, then PECS and video modeling can be used for their education (Dettmer, et.al. 2000). However, due to the limited amount of research conducted towards science content, there is hardly any study that did research on science content using these ABA interventions. Nonetheless, it is possible to find experiments in studies that are similar to the ABA interventions. For example, Knight and colleagues (2012) conducted an experiment where they were teaching three elementary students scientific descriptors (wet, off, cold, dry, hot, etc.) by using an intervention they called explicit instructions. Before they started using explicit instructions, the researchers assessed the autistic children’s knowledge of the science descriptors, by displaying four objects with one depicting the concept for example …show more content…
To help autistic students to memorize these words and to comprehend them, Knight and colleagues (2013) used something called graphic organizer and also explicit instructions. Graphic organizers “is “procedural facilitator” which may include visual displays, diagrams or outlines to help students organize fundamental concept and vocabulary (Knight, et.al. 2013, p: 116). In Knight and colleagues’ (2013) experiment, they were able to teach students to understand and comprehend the vocabulary and the big picture of “conviction” by using a graphic organizer (Figure 1), and explicit instructions. Therefore this shows that “Students need to grasp vocabulary to understand “big ideas” in science” (Knight, et.al.